nderstood, this
useful and sometimes elegant article is fabricated from the bark
of different trees. But, as I believe that no description of its
manufacture has ever been given, I shall state what I know regarding it.

In the manufacture of the beautiful white tappa generally worn on the
Marquesan Islands, the preliminary operation consists in gathering a
certain quantity of the young branches of the cloth-tree. The exterior
green bark being pulled off as worthless, there remains a slender
fibrous substance, which is carefully stripped from the stick, to which
it closely adheres. When a sufficient quantity of it has been collected,
the various strips are enveloped in a covering of large leaves, which
the natives use precisely as we do wrapping-paper, and which are secured
by a few turns of a line passed round them. The package is then laid in
the bed of some running stream, with a heavy stone placed over it, to
prevent its being swept away. After it has remained for two or three
days in this state, it is drawn out, and exposed, for a short time, to
the action of the air, every distinct piece being attentively inspected,
with a view of ascertaining whether it has yet been sufficiently
affected by the operation. This is repeated again and again, until the
desired result is obtained.

When the substance is in a proper state for the next process, it
betrays evidences of incipient decomposition; the fibres are relaxed and
softened, and rendered perfectly malleable. The different strips are
now extended, one by one, in successive layers, upon some smooth
surface--generally the prostrate trunk of a cocoanut tree--and the heap
thus formed is subjected, at every new increase, to a moderate beating,
with a sort of wooden mallet, leisurely applied. The mallet is made of a
hard heavy wood resembling ebony, is about twelve inches in length, and
perhaps two in breadth, with a rounded handle at one end, and in shape
is the exact counterpart of one of our four-sided razor-strops. The flat
surfaces of the implement are marked with shallow parallel indentations,
varying in depth on the different sides, so as to be adapted to the
several stages of the operation. These marks produce the corduroy sort
of stripes discernible in the tappa in its finished state. After being
beaten in the manner I have described, the material soon becomes blended
in one mass, which, moistened occasionally with water, is at intervals
hammered out, by a kind of